Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Otis
My beast felt restless. Part of it was because I was stuck here at work instead of my normal time off ritual, which consisted of me heading to my cabin. Minotaurs weren’t really made for city living. We enjoyed wide, open spaces and nature. I needed to recharge.
Coupled with being stuck in my human form for so long, it definitely made me more antsy than normal.
Maybe I should have taken a leaf out of Louis’s book and spent the day out of the center.
He looked completely rejuvenated as he cooked dinner, humming to himself softly beneath his breath.
I thought he was singing some pop ballad from the eighties, but I couldn’t be sure, because while he had many talents, singing on pitch wasn’t one of them.
As if he could feel my stare, he turned. “You okay over there? You’re wearing a hole in the carpet, and it already needs to be replaced.”
I stilled my feet. I hadn’t even realized I’d been pacing. “Fine. Just being cooped up, I think.”
Louis nodded, pushing a chopping board and several peppers toward me. “Save the carpet and chop some veggies for your fajitas.”
Pulling a stool from beneath the kitchen counter, I sat down. I went about slicing the peppers to the exact specifications needed to achieve evenly cooked vegetables. Louis rolled his eyes but returned to what he was doing, which apparently was handmaking tortillas.
We worked in silence for a little longer, until he stopped in front of me, replacing my peppers for onions. “Why don’t you head out tomorrow? Go frolic in a meadow or whatever it is you do in your time off.”
I raised a brow at him. “Did you just make a cow joke?”
He rolled his eyes at me but smirked. “I would never, but we both know you head out to the woods and do… What do you even do out there?”
“Nothing.” That was the point.
“Well, go do that tomorrow. We’ll survive without you for one day. Eric already looks better, and Hailey is safe here.”
My ears twitched. “You’re right. I don’t know for how much longer, though, because she’s already talking about going back to her job, and that’ll be like going right back to the scene of the crime when anyone looking for a little retribution will be able to find her.”
Louis nodded, throwing a tortilla in a hot pan. “That’s a good point.” He pointed a spatula at me. “Actually, I have a great idea.”
I tilted my head at him, because Louis’s ideas could either be genius or unhinged. There was no middle ground. “What’s that?”
“Why don’t we hire her for team one? She can answer the phones, and it’ll free us up to do more call outs.
If she enjoys it, maybe she could even work the day shift for team two.
Everyone would get less time on the hotline switchboard, and we’ll all go home happy.
She’d be protected within these walls, and Syke will stop frying the phone system every time it’s his turn to answer calls.
” He shrugged. “She has a calming vibe. It might be beneficial.”
My knife stilled. That was actually a really great idea. “I’ll ask the rest of the team before we pitch it to her.”
I put the knife down beside the finely sliced onions, each a perfect width. Louis grabbed the chopping board and took it to the skillet. “You could measure them with a ruler, and they’d be exactly uniform.” Louis laughed. “You definitely need to get out more.”
I waved him off and went in search of Syke and Ilyas. I found Syke in his room, throwing a ball of shadows around like he was in prison rather than his place of work. He lifted his head as I knocked on his door. He didn’t call me in, just looked at me expectantly.
“Louis thinks we should hire Hailey to act as a hotline operator instead of sending her back to the diner.”
“The orc is rich, she wouldn’t have to go back to work ever.”
He made a good point. If watching their interactions over the last twenty-four hours had taught me anything, it was that Eric would happily spend the rest of his life showering her with gifts and happiness.
However, it didn’t take an empath to see that Hailey wasn’t the kind of person who’d be able to sit at home and stare at the walls all day, gifts be damned.
“I don’t think Hailey would allow herself to be a kept woman. Would you be okay if she worked with team one?”
Syke grunted. “Would I have to do the phones again?”
“Only if she’s sick and there’s no one else.”
“Would I have to train her?”
I snorted, the sound considerably bull-like. “Absolutely not.”
“Then welcome to the team, little human.” He went back to throwing the shadow ball. We were all cooped up. “Why don’t you go out tonight? Eric is okay, and you need to burn off some magic.”
Syke grinned at me, and it was such a devilish expression that there was no way you would think he was anything but a demon. “If you say so, boss.”
Huffing, I left the room and moved down the hall toward Ilyas’s space. He was reading on the bed.
“Dinner is almost ready,” I told him, and he nodded. “Did you hear what I said to Syke?”
Gargoyles had amazing hearing. He nodded, and I leaned against the doorjamb.
“What do you think?”
His face was hard to read. He was stoic at the best of times. “I think it’s a neat solution to a problem, but I also wonder if you latching onto the idea is because your inner beast is feeling a little protective of them and has grown a little too attached.”
I frowned. “No more than any other case we’ve had.”
Ilyas’s stony expression gave me nothing. I couldn’t tell if he thought I was spouting bullshit or not. Finally, he shrugged. “I think it’s a good idea.”
Rapping my knuckles on the doorframe, I nodded. “Good, I’ll put the idea to her and see what she says.” I cleared my throat. “Dinner should be in ten minutes.”
Nodding, he went back to his book. Was he right? Was I getting attached to the orc and his little human mate?
It would be unethical, to say the least. No.
This was purely a professional decision.
Louis was the only one of us with the personality to answer the calls without getting irate.
This was good for the whole team, not just Hailey.
She seemed like she genuinely liked creatures too.
She didn’t shy from our true forms or let any of the small insults that made it into the human vernacular slip, even if they didn’t mean it in a derogatory way.
Sixty percent of our calls came from humans, so maybe having another human on the end of the line would improve caller satisfaction as well. I was already drafting the employment request to my superiors and how I’d explain it to team two.
Louis rang the dinner bell, and I headed back to the common area to help. Ilyas was right behind me, and he walked over to grab the cast iron pan of sizzling meat, no need for an oven mitt.
Hailey’s soft gasp as she walked in made me realize we were all in our creature forms except for Louis. She glanced over at Louis. “It smells amazing.”
She still looked sleep ruffled, a piece of hair poking up at an odd angle like she’d missed it when she finger combed the golden locks.
Louis grinned, waving her to a seat. “Thank you. I enjoy cooking for the team. I don’t get to do it very often off shift.”
Eric pushed her chair in for her. “So you all live separately outside of work?”
“Yep,” Louis answered. “We work five days on, five days off, and everyone needs a little downtime. The only teammates who live together are Liam and Deuce from team two, though how anyone lives with Deuce without strangling him is the true act of magic.”
I grunted my agreement. The young warlock was…
enthusiastic, but then so was my cousin, Liam.
They were actually good for each other. Liam tempered Deuce’s more outrageous ideas, and Deuce helped Liam loosen up and live a little.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t eternally grateful that they were both on Chet’s team and not mine.
Once everyone had food, I cleared my throat.
“So, Hailey, we have a proposition for you.” Eric’s eyes narrowed, and I resisted the urge to laugh.
“Uh, not that kind of proposition. We realize that going back to the diner would be dangerous for you, but while we haven’t known you long, we can already tell you wouldn’t be the type of person who could sit around doing nothing all day. ”
She scoffed. “You aren’t wrong. I would die of boredom in a week.”
“We thought, perhaps, you might like to work as a hotline operator for team one. Answering the hotline phone, logging the calls by urgency, that kind of thing. We’d train you—and I’d have to pass it by management—but I think you’d suit the work.
” I didn’t say that she’d be safe here and we could watch over her so no more humans with bad intentions could threaten her life.
She chewed her lip, and I could see her weighing it up. “It wouldn’t be a problem that I’m human?”
I shook my head. “It might be an asset, really.”
She looked at Eric, and he gave her a soft smile. “I’ll support you no matter what you decide to do,” he told her, but I could see the faint hint of relief in his expression. He knew she’d be safer here too.
She was silent a little longer, picking at her fajitas, until she finally nodded. “I’d like that, thank you.”
Louis whooped. “Welcome to the team!”
She smiled so brightly, it was like sunshine had burst across my fur, warming me from the inside out.
I met Ilyas’s eyes across the table, and he didn’t have to say the words. I’d grown attached faster than I thought possible, but there was no taking back the offer now, and I wouldn’t even if I could.